Follow Unite the Fight through Facebook!

Pass it on! Make this blog your favorite!

Monday, October 26, 2009

What do all of these have in common? A strong possibility of marriage equality being legal by the end of the year. With all of the focus on Maine, Washington state and Kalamazoo, MI and their rights-stripping referendums, we sometimes forget that more work is being done elsewhere with good possible outcomes.

However, not everyone is liking it.

New Jersey, the last state with a civil union law that has not banned or legalized marriage equality, has a pretty LGBT-friendly legislature that's considering a marriage equality bill. Its current governor, Jon Corzine, who's facing a tight reelection race, is dedicated to signing the bill if it hits his desk. Currently, the plan is to pass the bill after the elections and Corzine will sign it during what could be his lame duck session.

This possibility was protested Sunday at the state's capital in Trenton by anti-marriage equality forces who are demanding that they get to vote on the issue.

Hundreds of people — holding signs that read "Let the people decide" and "Marriage = one man and one woman" — gathered in front of the Statehouse in Trenton today to protest gay marriage. The crowd applauded as politicians and representatives from the Catholic Church, as well as other religious groups, vowed to defeat gay marriage.

"That word ‘marriage’ means an awful lot to us, and we don’t want to see it radically redefined," said Len Deo of the New Jersey Family Policy Council. "You cannot redefine what you did not create."

------

But religious groups in the state are divided on the issue.

The Rev. Charlie Ortman of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Montclair last week said he and his church — along with 17 other religious groups across the state — actively support gay marriage.

"Religion has made such a mess of this matter that it’s religion that now must step into the fray so that religions can stand on the side of love rather than the side of discrimination," Ortman said.

Get involved! Help New Jersey pass marriage equality legislation. Go to Garden State Equality to find out how!

What Events Are Happening Where

Email info@unitethefight.org to add your event or to obtain a copy of the calendar's html to add to your website.

"All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression."

- Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, and one of the most influential Founding Fathers.